Recipes Really Are Confusing
by karatam
Summary: Brittany tries to bake a cake. It doesn't go quite as planned.


**Title**: Recipes really are confusing  
**Rating**: PG  
**Pairing**: Brittany/Santana  
**Spoilers**: none  
**Summary**: Brittany tries to bake a cake. It doesn't go quite as planned  
**Disclaimer**: All characters belong to Fox and Ryan Murphy. No copyright infringement is intended and no profit is being made from this work of fiction.

* * *

When Brittany woke up from her nap, she glanced over at the clock. It read 4:52 pm.

"Shit." She scrambled up off the couch, nearly falling over when her foot got caught on a discarded shirt from the night before. Running her hands through messy blond hair, she moved toward a bag sitting in the hallway. She rifled through it until she found the crumpled sheet of paper she was looking for.

After walking to the kitchen, she flattened the paper out on the counter and noticed with a frown that something must have spilled on it because all the writing on the upper left side was blurred enough to render it unreadable.

She decided she should have let Rachel laminate it like Rachel had insisted.

Two days earlier, she had taken the bus to Rachel and Quinn's house with a mission in mind (and she had only gotten lost once on the way there, a record for Brittany). She had wanted to bake Santana the perfect cake for her birthday and she had needed help figuring out what kind of recipe to use (they really were very confusing).

Quinn had been reluctant (actually, she was terrified, but didn't want to say) while Rachel's eyes had lit up at the suggestion. The bedazzled pink laptop had been whipped out and Rachel had scoured the internet for the perfect cake. After half an hour, she presented her choices to Brittany, who vetoed every one but plain chocolate for various reasons ("S doesn't like pink", "Clowns are scary", "Too small", "Too big", "S hates balloons", "Everyone hates Polly Pocket now, Rachel").

Rachel had been disappointed to say the least, but she printed off the recipe for Brittany. Later, when she left, Brittany heard Rachel say to Quinn, "Quinnie, why don't you ever bake me anything?" Brittany closed the door before she could hear Quinn's (no doubt) outraged reply.

Brittany carefully read the list of ingredients needed (two were smudged out, so she ignored them) and went to the cupboard to check if they had any of them. She wasn't sure there were any eggs left, but weren't eggs breakfast food anyway?

/ /

Santana pulled into her parking space and turned off her car. She leaned back into her seat and closed her eyes, trying to get her muscles to relax completely. There was a pounding pain right behind her temples and what she really wanted – needed – was Brittany and a nap. In that order.

Her watch beeped at the half hour mark, 5:30, and she sighed before reaching over to pick up her briefcase.

The elevator moved far slower than usual, she was sure, as it travelled up to her floor, glowing red numbers increasing with every beep. When the doors opened, she could hear the incredibly irritating sound of a smoke alarm going off.

"The stupid neighbours need to fucking realize that they can't fucking barbeque on the balcony without the alarm going off," she mumbled to herself. She rubbed her temples, trying to alleviate the pain that the alarm definitely wasn't helping.

But when she passed the stupid neighbours' door and the sound of the alarm continued to come from in front of her, she came to a horrible realization.

"Oh, _fuck_, B." Santana jammed her hand into her pocket, trying to find her keys as quickly as possible. When she finally got the apartment door open, she can see smoke coming through the doorway of their kitchen.

She dropped her briefcase, jacket and keys on the floor of the entryway and ran to the kitchen, the heels of her shoes clacking and slipping on the wooden floor. When she entered the room, she saw Brittany standing on a chair under the alarm, waving a newspaper at it. The oven remained closed, smoke pouring out from the seams of the door.

"San, I'm so sorry, I didn't know what to do." Brittany's voice is high and strained, her eyebrows drawn tightly together as she stared in sorrow at the black smoke. Santana slipped on an oven mitt and carefully opened the door, ducking down and tucking her mouth and nose into her elbow at the plume of smoke that escaped. Keeping her head down, she reached in and grabbed the edge of the silver pan. She pulled it out and laid it on the counter before reaching over to stab at the buttons on the oven, attempting to turn it off.

"B, get the window," Santana coughed out, blinking rapidly to stop the involuntary tearing. Brittany leapt off the chair straight to the window and fiddled with the latch until it swung open. They both gasped thankfully at the breeze of fresh air came into the room.

The alarm was still blaring at an excruciating volume, so Santana stepped up onto the chair and just yanked on the little machine until it came off the ceiling in her hand. She found the wires leading to the battery and pulled. The beeping stopped.

"Finally." Now that she could finally relax, Santana took a look at the thing that started all of the chaos. The cake was completely black on the outside and only the left side had raised at all, the rest a pockmarked mess of lumps. She poked the highest part with her finger and it immediately fell. Brittany sighed behind her.

Santana was turning around to look at her girlfriend when she noticed the state of the rest of the kitchen. Flour, sugar, butter, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder was sprinkled on every available surface and it looked like every bowl and pan they owned had been used. "Just how many cakes did you bake, Brittany? Goddamn!" Santana rubbed her hands over her face, taking deep breathes to try and stop her instinctual and rather unpleasant reaction.

There was a sniffling behind her and Santana felt a tightening in her chest. She turned around to see Brittany roughly scrubbing a hand across her eyes, bottom lip tucked between her teeth. Santana immediately felt like a jackass and lifted a hand to gently wipe a tear from Brittany's cheek. "What happened?"

Brittany just shook her head and moved back the slightest bit.

"B, I promise I won't get mad or anything. It's just that you usually avoid the kitchen at all costs, so I'm just curious." Brittany thought about it, her teeth worrying her lip. Santana reached out to tug a little at Brittany's lip, "Don't do that, you'll make it bleed."

Brittany smiled softly at that and her shoulders relaxed. "I just wanted today to be special so I decided to bake you a cake. Rachel helped choose the cake," she nudged Santana, who couldn't help the eye roll, "but I wanted to bake it without any help." She glanced over at the ruined cake morosely. "I guess that didn't really work."

"As much as I like the idea of having a cake baked for me when I get home, what's the occasion?" Santana went through her mental list of anniversaries but couldn't think of anything worth celebrating.

"It's your _birthday_, San! I wanted it to be awesome, but now it sucks." Brittany pouted while Santana couldn't help but laugh.

"Oh babe, it's not ruined. I wouldn't have even remembered it without you, so I wasn't expecting anything. And anyways, I don't need some cake when I've got you." She finished her sentence with a blush and rubbed the back of her neck with a hand while Brittany beamed, the remnants of her sad mood disappearing quickly.

Brittany bounced over to her embarrassed girlfriend and threw her arms around Santana's neck, leaning in to kiss her softly on the cheek. When slim arms came around her waist, she leaned forward, her breath tickling Santana's ear, "Well, in that case, I bought the chocolate icing, so we might as well put it to good use."

Santana froze, images rushing through her over-stimulated brain. Brittany slipped out of her arms and reached over to the counter, picking up a little tub of icing. She began to walk backwards out of the kitchen and tossed the tub at Santana, whose hands came up instinctively to catch it, clutching it to her chest.

With that, Brittany turned around and took a few steps before pausing. Glancing over her shoulder at Santana, she lifted her shirt over her head and dropped it to the ground. When Santana couldn't seem to get her feet to move, she kept walking out of the kitchen and into the bedroom. Santana looked around at the horrible mess that was her kitchen and nearly wanted to call Brittany back in to help her clean up (well, not actually, but it really was disgusting).

Then a hand appeared around the edge of the doorway and dropped a red lace bra to the ground. That yanked Santana's priorities back into their proper order and she was immediately trying to pull her shirt over her head while keeping the tub of icing from falling out of her grip. When she got the bedroom and saw Brittany leaning up against the headboard, sheet pooling around her hips, she didn't even try to stop her grin.

Placing a knee on the bed so she could lean over her girlfriend, Santana slipped a hand into blond hair and kissed Brittany as thoroughly as she knew how. Pulling back to a blinding grin and playful blue eyes, she murmured against Brittany's lips before pushing her back against the pillows.

"Best. Birthday. _Ever_."


End file.
